Mental Perfection: A Jungian-Based Analysis

of
the Ideal Athletic Mind

By: Thomas
Norminton

Have you ever been to a sports event? What were you thinking
about as you watched the professional athletes play their sport? I
usually hear “How did he do that?” or “He makes it look so easy.”
Afterwards, these sports fans usually try to integrate what they
notice from the professionals into their own game. As a tennis
player, I have told myself, after watching a great player like Roger
Federer, that I need to be lighter on my feet. Those words, “Be
lighter on your feet,” pass through my mind as I play. I am thus
actively making a judgment on my game and commanding my body to
perform accordingly. Problematically, any observer of an athlete
cannot fully replicate the professional’s performance without
knowing the precise mental processes responsible. Most assume that
the process of thinking, or the search for the meaning behind
something on a conscious level, will cause the body to move in the
correct manner. Most associate sports primarily with a series of
well-executed physical movements. In other words, most believe that
the secret to sports lies in knowing how to move your body in the
right way or the sole use of bodily kinesthetic intelligence
(Gardner 206)1. Many top professionals and coaches,
however, agree that the key factor at the highest levels is a solid
mental game. Nick Saviano, a world-renowned tennis coach, argues
that one’s “mental game is critical to [one’s] success as a player”
(Saviano 130)2. Former baseball professional George
Gmelch believes baseball, a sport very similar to tennis, to be 90%
mental in the professional leagues (Gmelch 1)3. Williams
concluded from his study of soccer players that inexperienced
athletes can recall the “proper way” to perform better and faster
than experienced athletes, who know how to perform without thinking.
So the mechanics at the highest levels have nothing to do with the
athlete’s agenda. Since athletes perform the physical aspects of the
game on an unconscious level, the athlete is left to deal with his
vulnerable conscious mental state (M. Williams 265)4. To
deal with this vulnerable state in tennis, our perceptive, or
irrational, mental functions, without interference from the
judgmental, or rational, mental functions, should dominate the
conscious mind for the athlete to achieve peak performance.

To prove this, I will first elaborate on why our rational
mental functions should not dominate our conscious mind. A decision
made rationally is a decision based primarily on one’s thoughts and
judgments of the object and not the intensity of his perception of
the object (Jung 359)5. For example, I could anticipate
the ball will spin rapidly because my opponent used a lot of forearm
and wrist on his shot. Whether the ball really did spin is
irrelevant to the rational functions. In another instance, I could
judge that the ball is unreachable because I had never before
reached a ball with such pace at such a distance away from me.
Notice this decision has nothing to do with the present reality.
Whether the ball was reachable or unreachable is irrelevant to the
rational functions. When we think or feel we complicate the world
around us by attaching artificial meanings or artificial values to
it. In a sense, the conscious use of our rational functions distorts
our world. Without human beings to think and feel, the world would
have neither meaning nor value. It would simply exist as the world.
In tennis, we want to return to the unaltered reality of the
world.

Thinking, a rational mental function, is a process in which
one searches for the meaning behind something (Jung
481)6. “I wonder why he chose the color black” would be
example of thinking, because the mind is trying to uncover the
meaning behind the color choice. The irrational functions would
simply register the color black without further investigation. In
tennis, many players ask themselves, “Why did that shot go out?” By
asking that question, they are trying to uncover the meaning behind
missing the shot.

In addition, I will also have to introduce the concept of the
conscious and unconscious mind. We choose what to make conscious
based on whether we intend to focus our attention on it or whether
our genetics or environment instructs us to do so. When we walk in a
busy city we pass hundreds of people without having awareness. We
might register their shape or form for a split second but will
instantly forget it (Csikszentmihalyi 30)7. The
unconscious mind governs any process that is not conscious. When we
read, we take in thousands of images of letters and, based on having
uncovered the meaning of those symbols previously, effortlessly
translate them into images. At the same time, our body undergoes
thousands of intricate processes every second without our being
aware. Moreover, the unconscious mind compensates for the conscious
mind (Jung 337)8. In other words, if we think consciously
we are repressing into the unconscious our irrational functions of
perception and our rational function of feeling, which will be
discussed later. Conversely, if we perceive consciously without
judging our perceptions we repress our capacity to think and
feel.

Athletes do not possess the capacity to consciously think
quickly enough for thought to be beneficial to their game at a high
level. Our conscious minds are limited by the amount of information
they can process. At any given moment, the mind can “process at most
126 bits of information per second,” which is theoretically the
amount of processing power it takes to fully understand three people
talking at the same time. The simple act of eating requires about
15% of our consciousness, and we therefore cannot afford to do
anything else that requires serious concentration while we eat
(Csikszentmihalyi 29)9. In tennis, when returning a
serve, “to anticipate how and where to move the feet and whether to
take the racket back on the forehand or backhand side, the brain
must calculate within a fraction of a second the moment the ball
leaves the server’s racket approximately where it is going to land
and where the racket will intercept it. Into this calculation must
be computed the initial velocity of the ball, combined with an input
for the progressive decrease in velocity and the effect of wind and
of spin, to say nothing of the complicated trajectories involved”
(Gallwey 33)10. That description omits the other
complicated processes for muscle tension and movement. The conscious
mind does not have the capacity to make all those calculations. In
baseball, a batter must evaluate various characteristics of the
ball, including spin, speed, and direction, and must recognize when
to swing and when not to all in less than a second. Our conscious
minds can take in the image of the ball as it moves but do not have
the capacity to do that and determine the proper response all in a
split second.

Performance
anxiety, adverse to peak performance, is the result of conscious
thought. When we fear an upcoming challenge like a difficult test,
oral presentation, job interview, or athletic performance, we are
consciously placing a judgment on ourselves that we may be incapable
of performing at the level necessary. We additionally start
considering the consequences of not performing well, like losing a
job or a match, but that response to stress is a result of the
feeling function, which will be discussed more thoroughly later. “A
true case of performance anxiety is diagnosed if the fear of
performing is seen as both excessive and unrealistic” (Hamilton
2)11. Thus, the athlete is judging the desired
performance to be unattainable. Her thoughts are inferring with
reality. She has not yet proven that she cannot perform at the
desired level. When these unnecessary pejorative judgments evade our
conscious mind, we will not have same 126-bit mental capacity. We
might have only 60 left when we need 70 for optimal performance, and
at the highest levels, as I stated before, athletes need to process
more calculations at a faster rate. In tennis, when playing against
a high-level player, one must deal with fast, heavy balls with
enormous amounts of spin and variety of spin, and thus performance
anxiety would harm the high-level players to a greater degree. Many
people say that the professionals do not get nervous. That is not
true. They do get nervous but are able to minimize their performance
anxiety based on their experience. Nick Saviano agrees that “it’s
okay to be nervous; just don’t be afraid” (Saviano
142)12. Fear implies a stronger value placed on the
outcome of the performance, a conscious feeling in other words about
the outcome.

While
thinking consciously denies us the capacity to perform at high
levels, the conscious use of the feeling rational function also
impairs performance levels. With thinking, again, one seeks to find
the meaning behind something. On the other hand, with feeling, one
seeks to place a value on something (Jung 354)13. When we
say we admire a painting we are placing a diminutive but positive
value on that painting. When we say we love a person we are placing
a much stronger value on that person. The stronger the value, the
more emotionally attached that person is to the object. On the
tennis court, when we tell ourselves to do something, we have
consciously valued ourselves to be incapable of performing without
instruction. Athletes sometimes think about how much a particular
point means to them. Many times when they realize the value of the
point, they end up losing the point because the feeling used up
space in the conscious mind.

When
the feeling function dominates the conscious mind, the player will
usually display these feelings. A clear example of this display of
feeling is when a player shouts “Comon!” in exhilaration after
winning a point. From this demonstration, one can deduce that the
point won was a crucial one judged by the magnitude of the shout and
that the player is actively enjoying the value of earning the point.
Players may also, on the other hand, display negative feelings after
losing a crucial point. In both cases, the player is consciously
using his capacity of feeling. Specifically, the feeling function
has dominated the conscious mind because the positive or negative
feelings have acquired enough energy to surpass the threshold of
consciousness. Whether these displays are evidence that those
feelings have hampered the player’s abilities depends on whether the
player was aware of those feelings during the point. In almost all
cases, however, the display of feelings implies the player’s
awareness of those feelings during the point.

This
conscious awareness of feelings distracts the player from the
reality of the moment. “At times, our [emotion] leads us to duck
opportunities we should embrace” (Gross 287)14. Emotions
generate a false reality with values relevant only to the person,
distorting what is, which could very well be interpreted by another
in an inverted way. They, in other words, cause the world to be
relative. Common in everyday life, one may view the president as
brilliant while another may view him as incompetent. The president
in reality isn’t either. He is simply a man with extreme values
attached to him. One of emotion’s many definitions is “Emotion
follows as effect on the bodily disturbance” (Irons
93)15. Since emotions are the result of the body when it
is disturbed, one will waste precious energy paying attention to
that disturbance (because it is his nature to do so) instead of
paying attention to his surroundings. In addition to the value with
which players attach to points, they may also attach certain values
to their opponents. A player might, on the one hand, consider his
opponent a great friend and feel guilty for calling a close ball
out. And if that friend ever questions the player’s calls, both
players feel an emotional devaluation, more powerful than if they
were complete strangers. Those emotions distract the players from
the ball (Saviano 141-142)16. At the same time, because
the unconscious mind compensates for the conscious mind and feeling
is a rational function, to feel consciously denies one conscious use
of his irrational functions of perception. Athletes should therefore
repress these feelings. The danger in repression, however, is the
build up of feelings in the unconscious mind. These repressed
feelings will build up to a point at which they begin to manifest
themselves consciously in a childish way (Jung 350)17. To
fix this, the player should not place such a high value to anything
pertaining to the match. If so, feelings will not need to be
repressed because they will not exist in such an overwhelming
amount.

Also, to minimize the manifestation of emotions in the
conscious mind, athletes should seek moderation in their emotions.
If one faces a challenge too difficult for his skill-level, then he
will experience anxiety, and on the other hand if one faces a
challenge too easy for his skill-level, then he will experience
boredom. (Csikszentmihalyi 74)18. These responses are in
turn symbols of poor performance. Our emotions should therefore
remain neutral for optimal performance. The esoteric baseball phrase
“stay on an even keel” encourages this emotional moderation (Gmelch
6)19. When we experience higher levels of anxiety our
bodies’ processes become less natural and more consciously
controlled (Murphy 116)20. Thus, too much anxiety leads
the athlete to a more thought-controlled conscious mind, which is
not ideal. To speak more generally of the body’s energy
distribution, peak performance requires a particular intensity level
(not too high and not too low). Williams concludes that the
performance-arousal graph looks like an inverted-U, whose maximum
depends on whether the player is an extrovert or introvert. Optimal
performance for an introvert requires less arousal than optimal
performance for an extrovert (J. Williams 272)21.
Nevertheless, for a player to reach optimal performance he must find
the right amount of emotional arousal (enough so that he cares about
the outcome of his performance and not too much so that he does not
stress out about it) and keep it in the back of his head.

Emotions like confidence may cause an athlete to play at his
optimal level but would do so only fortuitously. Confidence can lead
a player to try to play above himself. This is demonstrated in
tennis when a players tries to hit shots at a pace which for him is
inconsistent. In that case, his confidence has blinded him to the
reality of his game. At the same time, negativity can lead a player
to play below himself. Many tennis players feel incapable of hitting
the same shots that they hit in practice. If negativity helps a
player reach his optimal level, then the player must have been
trying to play at a level above his optimal level. Bollettieri and
Maher teach to “be realistic in what you attempt to do” (Bollettieri
and Maher 163)22. When I play tennis having been sick for
the past few days I usually reason, when I make a mistake, that I
was simply sick and I should not worry about it. While I am making a
judgment by giving a reason for my mistakes, I am remaining
emotionally uninvolved. I did not need to place a value on the
mistake because the sickness was likely to have caused me to play
differently. Most of the time when I am sick, in fact, I actually
play closer to my optimal performance. Although my physical shape
impairs my playing abilities, my mental game grows sharper. Be more
of an observer of your game and make changes as a result of your
real observations and not as a result of your positive or negative
emotions. If your opponent moves you around and you find yourself
tiring quickly, then after the match consider training your
endurance. If your opponent hits a few unbelievable shots that you
were not capable of reaching, do not become upset. It does not
necessarily mean you are slow. In most cases, your opponent is
overhitting and getting lucky on a few shots (Saviano
63)23. Those few lucky shots tend to affect many players
emotionally, causing them to chastise themselves for being slow,
unfocused, and many other negative qualities. Conversely, if you
play a few brilliant points, it does not necessarily mean that you
are playing well. You might be trying to play at a level that is
above your level and might soon start to be inconsistent, causing a
deluge of negativity due to your sudden, unexplained misses.

Because
our rational mental functions should not dominate our conscious
mind, our irrational mental functions should. While a rational
decision is based on one’s judgment of the object, an irrational
decision is based on one’s intensity of his perception of the object
(Jung 370)24. For example, I start moving as I hear the
sound of the ball striking my opponent’s racket. My conscious mind
only takes in the information—that the ball was struck. My
unconscious mind reads the information and makes the decision to
move. In another instance, I notice the ball bounce and begin my
swing. My conscious mind only takes in the information—that the ball
bounced. My unconscious mind then reads the information and makes
the decision to begin the swing. Notice that in both cases my
conscious mind does not search for the meaning behind the
information nor does it attach a value to the information; it simply
takes in the information and reacts based on the intensity of what
it perceives. In the background, the unconscious mind controls the
way our body reacts. When we accidentally place one of our fingers
on a stove we instantly pull it away. We did not consciously move
our finger. The whole process occurred on an unconscious level. As a
result, the reaction was instantaneous. If our reactions were always
instantaneous, we would obviously be much better athletes.

Human
minds perform two different types of irrational functions. The
sensation function perceives the world as it is in the present. It
is a detail-oriented function, responding to whatever catches the
eye in that moment (Jung 462)25. While the sensation
function notices what is, the intuition functions notices
what can be. In other words, it is a more contextual-oriented
function that takes in the big picture and sees all the different
patterns and future possibilities implicit in the present (Jung
366)26. Someone whose intuitive function is more
prominent than his sensation function despises stable conditions,
wanting the freedom to explore the world’s infinite possibilities
(Jung 368)27.

Ideally,
the sensation function dominates the conscious mind. When the
sensation function is dominant, awareness is maximized. No other
function perceives the world in the moment better than the sensation
function. Many sources agree that proper attention is alertness
(Murphy 116)28. In others words, we should be consciously
alert to our surroundings before anything else. How can we be alert?
Most would agree you have to notice what’s going on around you.
Moreover, because you are making an effort to perceive your
surroundings, it must be conscious. Another source contends that
“peak performance depends on focusing the senses instead of shutting
them down” or making them unconscious (Lorch-Bacci 1)29.
Thus, she implies we should consciously use our senses, consequently
“shutting down” our thoughts and leaving them to the unconscious. A
tennis player does not have to worry about where his racket
“should be, but…should realize the importance of being aware
of where the racket head is at all times” (Gallwey
25)30. He defends that we should sense where our racket
head is through the information given to our brains from our hands.
Saviano encourages players to “stay in the present” (Saviano
137)31. Rational functions do not deal with the present.
Just as in the example with my judging a ball to be unreachable
based on prior experience. In that case, I was not in the present
and never found out whether I could have gotten to that ball.
Gallwey agrees that we should “increase our awareness of what
actually is” rather than what we think it is (Gallwey
25)32.

At
the same time, this focus on the present does not necessarily mean
we should shut down the intuition function. Although it primarily
works on an unconscious level, intuition can at times manifest
itself on a conscious level. Jung explains that the intuitive
function “is represented in consciousness by an attitude of
expectancy, by vision and penetration” (Jung 366)33.
Tennis players should expect the ball to come back, no matter what
shot they hit. Never judge a ball to be out of your reach and not
run for it. “Run for every ball” (Saviano 99)34. Thus,
intuition along with sensation should express itself in one’s
conscious mind.

When
our conscious minds fail to make the necessary amount of judgments
needed to perform at a high level, our unconscious minds, with an
unimaginably larger capacity, can fulfill that requirement. Without
any conscious effort, our hearts pump blood throughout our bodies,
our lungs take in oxygen, convert it into carbon dioxide, and
breathe it out, and our numerous organs, glands, and muscles all
work together to produce a perfectly functional human body (Gallwey
33)35. The fact is great athletes, having trained for so
many years already know what to do. Because their conscious minds do
not think about how to perform, the images of how to perform are
inaccessible to them. Those images are stored in the unconscious (M.
Williams 266)36. As a result, it appears effortless and
as though they do not think. Their thoughts exist but exist on an
unconscious level, allowing them to think, out of necessity, at a
much faster rate.

As I have said before, our unconscious minds compensate for
our conscious minds. Each function, rational and irrational, battles
for supremacy. First I will explain how both of the rational
functions conflict with each other. Thinking and feeling do not
coincide. When someone searches the meaning behind a relationship,
for example, he does so emotionally unattached. Perhaps, the
relationship succeeds because both share an interest of watching the
same television program. Eventually, however, once the emotionally
attachment has formed the meaning behind the relationship is
irrelevant and at times irritating to discuss. Many people, when
asked why they love their parents, respond simply, “because they’re
my parents, and I love them.” When further interrogated on the
specific reasons behind the love many subjects grow uncomfortable,
sensing a devaluation of their love, for which many prefer not to
investigate. The conflict is most evident when a parent tries to
persuade her daughter to stop seeing her boyfriend, who has no
education and no job. The emotional attachment is the only factor
that keeps the couple together. Thus, the reasoning of why the
relationship should end works directly against the emotional
attachment that keeps them together. In the same sense, sensation
and intuition constantly struggle for dominance. While sensation
seeks to examine the reality of a situation and trust experience,
intuition wishes to go beyond what is seen to examine what can come
about. Some people will, when coming across a man who had been in a
car accident, look back on prior experience or what they’ve seen
people do in similar situations and call an ambulance. Others will
look past experience, notice the significant traffic coming from the
hospital, reasoning the ambulance will simply take too long, and
drive the man to the hospital themselves. The former, sensation
types, trust what is, and the latter, intuitive types, consider what
should be based on what is.

How
can we correct ourselves if we are not allowed to think on a
conscious level? How can we even recognize a mistake in the first
place without thinking? After a player makes a mistake, coaches will
often, if they are good coaches, explain why the player made the
mistake. They may instruct you to “keep good upper-body posture” or
use more hip rotation. Saviano in Maximum Tennis proceeds to
articulate the proper way to prepare for a shot (Saviano 74,
79-81)37. On a low level of tennis in which the ball
travels at a slow pace, a player could struggle with verbal or
written description in his conscious mind while playing and still
maintain his level of play. The only reason he is able to do this is
that his conscious mind can still process the information he needs
to play at his level. When the player reaches a certain level,
however, the conscious mind is forced to process information at an
impossible rate and thus fails to process all the information the
player needs to play at that higher level. Therefore, while playing,
we cannot correct ourselves because that would imply that we are
consciously thinking. The corrections should be thought about when
the player is inactive. When the player starts play again, however,
the thoughts should disappear.

How can we improve our game without conscious thought? While
it is impossible to improve without some conscious thought,
conscious thought can be minimized through the art of visualization.
A picture is worth a thousand words. A picture is worth so many
words that our conscious minds cannot process everything that’s
going on in a picture all at once. When our conscious minds reach
this threshold of information they shut down, allowing our
unconscious minds to evaluate the picture and make the necessary
corrections on a preferred unconscious level. Psychologists call
this process subliminal learning. During the 1950s companies started
using subliminal advertising. In one case, Coca-Cola flashed
messages during movies like “drink Coca-Cola.” The messages appeared
and disappeared so quickly that only our unconscious minds could
intake the information (Higbee 44)38. Another theory of
visualization called psychoneuromuscular theory states that “similar
impulses occur in the brain and muscles when athletes imagine the
movements without actually performing them” (J. Williams
317)39. Visualized movements can therefore “produce
low-level innervation in our muscles similar to that produced by the
actual physical execution of the event. Another theory of
visualization called symbolic learning theory contends that imagery
transforms an athlete’s movements into a series of symbols, which
can thus familiarize the movements when the athlete actually
performs them (J. Williams 317)40. Bioinformational
theory suggests that a mental image consists of a set of “stimulus
characteristics,” which when accessed later during actual movement
can be automatically transformed into “response characteristics,”
describing exactly what to do in every circumstance (J. Williams
317-318)41. All three theories lead to the same
conclusion—when we visualize we engrave the correct movements into
our heads, so that when we stop visualizing and the information
becomes unconscious, it is memorized and can be accessed by the
unconscious during play.

Isn’t it good to change negative thoughts to positive
thoughts? Jean Williams advocates the transition between the
thought, “There’s no sense in practicing. I have no natural talent.”
to “I’ve seen good players who had to work hard to be successful. I
can get better if I practice correctly” (J. Williams
366)42. Both statements make “rational” evaluations and
thus distort reality. Problematically, she is endorsing the
transition between conscious thought to a different form of
conscious thought. Of course, this way of thinking is not harmful
when off the court, but when on the court will encompass the
player’s mind during play through the form of unconscious
manifestations and therefore take up space in the conscious mind.
When a player begins to evaluate his game consciously he loses the
ability to think on an unconscious level and thus loses the ability
to make the necessary calculations at a fast rate while playing.
These thoughts should not come about on the court in the first
place.

A tennis professional and good friend of mine Noah Newman
articulated to me the development of a tennis player—when you start
playing tennis you learn how complicated the game is, all the
intricate muscle movements involved in playing well, and try to
master those complicated movements, but when you reach a certain
point in your development your goal becomes simplifying the game as
much as you can. At that new stage, the tennis player must realize
he has all the necessary muscular knowledge to play tennis at a high
level. The game is complicated, as are all sports, and an athlete
cannot consciously think about all the various muscle contradictions
and expansions he needs to perform at any second. The problem is
more evident when someone first tries to perform the seemingly
simple action of patting one’s head while rubbing one’s stomach at
the same time. We’re using almost all of our conscious mind’s
capacity to do two visually simple actions. Therefore, as I have
shown before, let your unconscious take care of it. It manages to
take care of the millions of different processes that keep your body
going, so having a few more won’t overwhelm its capacity. But at the
same time, to allow our unconscious minds to think we must perform
the opposite function—to perceive, to take in information for our
unconscious minds to analyze. So, to put it simply for those at that
crucial stage of development, just be aware. Although you might have
to tell yourself to be aware by evaluating at first, eventually this
state of mind should come about naturally. Be aware of the ball and
your racket (Gallwey 25)43. That’s it. Everything else
will fall into place.